


Half-Light

by QueenIX



Series: Hindsight [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 21:39:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3149396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenIX/pseuds/QueenIX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odo has been through his trial with the Founders, but he has doubts about how it will affect his relationship with Kira. She has no doubts, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half-Light

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the alternate timeline created in Hindsight, where Kira and Odo had a little more time together.

Kira was trapped between asleep and awake. She was suspended in that moment where consciousness mingled with its opposite self, where dreams became clear visions instead of deep secrets. She was in the grip of one those visions now, moving fast through a dense forest, ducking low branches, getting whip-slapped by those she missed, running, running, faster and faster, the forest streaking to a green blur, but running from what, she didn’t know… Wait. Not running _from_ , running _for_. Not pursued, she was the pursuer. But what was she hunting at such a reckless pace?

A sound from the real world jolted her from the dream, dissolving the forest in a blink and dropping her back in the dark. Her limbs tingled with shock, but she was alert, tensed. A presence was in her room, near her bed, making carefully quiet but not deliberately concealed noises. Judging by those noises, whoever he was, he was removing his clothes.

Kira came around fully, staying still, keeping her eyes closed. The presence moved closer to her bed and she knew a fluttered moment of panic, but it was quickly gone. Odo’s breathing gave him away. She knew that rhythm, that soft rise and fall, the gruffness of tone as he grunted a muffled sound of frustration. Kira smiled to herself as she kistened. Odo's undershirt must have gotten stuck again. He wasn't used to clothes yet, and sometimes the putting-on and taking-off still gave him trouble. Kira heard a light thud as the shirt landed on the floor and her smile widened. Success, then. She didn't have to get up and help him, and give herself away.

A sigh drifted to Kira through the dark, a resolution in the exhale, and Odo pulled up the covers. The mattress of her bed gave slightly under his weight. Kira's body tried to fall into the dip he’d created, but she held herself taut on her side. Her smile turned into a full grin as Odo settled in behind her and his hand found her hip.

“Nerys? I know you’re awake.”

Still smiling, Kira rolled over and opened her eyes. Starlight seeped through the small window of her room, gleaning off the sharp planes and angles of Odo's face. Kira found his hand and covered it with hers.

“You’re lucky I know this hand like the back of my own, or it'd be broken already. Sneaking into a woman’s quarters like this, in the dead of night. I should call the chief of security."

“Yes,"  Odo replied, "by all means, call that idiot. Someone needs to tell him to step up his game. It's all too easy for someone to slip into bed with you.”

Kira chuckled and smoothed her hand up Odo's arm and across his chest. “Are your intentions nefarious, Constable? If not, I’m going back to sleep.”

Odo responded with a kiss, a soft press of his lips to hers, then a soft invasion with his tongue when she didn’t object. Kira opened to him, responded with her own gentle insistence. She gripped the back of his neck, biting his lips a little as their kiss grew deeper, more heated. Odo liked it when she did that, when she showed her teeth.

“My intentions," Odo said as he released her mouth, "are to make up for my earlier behavior, for the things I said.” His hand ran up her side, over the satin of her night gown, tickling across her ribs to her breast. Kira gasped as her nipple hardened under his palm, and he teased her through the slip-slide of fabric. She bit her lip and arched into the soft stroke of his thumb.

“How am I doing so far?” he growled.

“So far, so good,” Kira breathed. She stopped his hand. “But you’re taking the easy way out. This isn't what I need from you, Odo, at least not only this. Sex wasn’t the only thing our argument was about.”

Odo heaved a long sigh. “I know," he said.

Silence stretched between them as they held each other, both of them recalling their argument from earlier, the way they’d left things. One of the worst things to do to one’s self or one’s partner, Kira knew, was to go to bed angry, and though she had stormed in a rage from Odo’s quarters, their argument unresolved, she’d made very sure to quell her temper before she tried to go to sleep. As she prepared her body for bed, she’d carefully released her bitterness. As she’d shed her uniform and washed her face, as she’d cleaned her teeth and pulled her nightgown from a drawer, she’d done her level best to repress the urge to rush back to Odo's quarters, and get in that last Kira Nerys word. After all, none of it had really been Odo's fault. She’d decided morning would give them both more perspective, and channeled all of her anger thoroughly elsewhere before giving herself over to the waiting comfort of her bed.

Certainly, the task hadn’t been easy, especially considering how beastly her own temper had been. Once that Goliath was out of its box, it was hard to pack it back in. Odo had said some ugly things to her, and it was all she had not to respond in kind. Even through the red haze of her temper, a pounding flow of rage in her veins that would have spelled certain death for anyone but him, she knew Odo’s words were born from a boiling rage of his own, and it had nothing at all to do with her. Odo had lashed out blindly, aiming at an enemy he would never get to face on a level battlefield, demons from another galaxy too far from their own that Odo had no hope of ever slaying. Still, his words had cut deep, in the way only words from a lover and a friend could.

Yet, here he was, in her arms, and both of them were still breathing. That had to count for something.

“So,” Kira began. She trailed the tips of her fingers down Odo's bare side, pleased by the catch in his breath. “I take it you no longer consider me an oversexed _harrah_ cat looking to scratch an itch.” Her tone she kept soft, dangerously so. Her words and the slight rake of her nails were a deliberately dropped gauntlet.

Odo picked it up. Carefully. “Neyrs, I’m so sorry. I've no right to speak to you like that, you’ve done nothing wrong. When I said that, I was…I was just so _angry._ At everything. You just happened to be standing there when it hit me.”

“Those were pretty personal words, Odo, for a blanket fit of temper.”

“I know, and again, I apologize. The pressure of everything that has gone on since I got back from the trial must have finally gotten to me. There’s just been so much… _change_ , and I thought I was doing the right thing, doing my best by carrying on, trying to be as normal as possible…Then there’s you, and us, which is also new, and I don’t know how that will all change, too, now that I’m a humanoid. The whole damned thing is so confusing, and when you started loosening my collar, I just snapped, I have no idea why…When I think about it all, Nerys, I get so lost sometimes.”

“Odo,” she soothed, “we didn’t get much time together before the Founders changed you. We were just getting started, but right here, right now, everything feels exactly the same to me. I don’t feel lost at all. I still feel the same about you, and if your choice is to ‘carry on,’ as you put it, then that includes learning to be with me in the body they gave you. You can’t let the Founders take that, too.”

“You don’t understand, you can’t understand—“

“Oh, here we go!” Kira said. She rolled away from him and onto her back, and glared into the dark above her.

“Yes, Nerys, here we go. You threw my words in my face just now, and I can only follow your lead and think back to what we were arguing about in the first place. I want to be with you. Hell, I think I’m the _harrah_ cat, but everything is so different now, so wrong, so flat, it’s all so much… _less_ than it was before. I’m afraid that…”

Kira turned back to Odo, finding his face by starlight again. The pain of what he’d been through, of what the Founders had done, was there for her to see plainly, even in the dim, more of his struggle since his return to the station showing than ever before. Every bit of what he’d held back from her was now carved on his features, in deep black and stark white. It struck her maybe this was the only way Odo would ever show her this much emotion, by the half-light of a stolen night.

Kira let go of her resentment and rolled on her side, reaching for him. She rubbed his shoulder gently.

“Tell me, Odo," she said. "What are you afraid of?”

Odo didn’t answer at first, only rolled into the palm she pressed to his cheek. He took her hand from his face and kissed it.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that they _did_ take you from me. They have taken everything from me, and you are part of the everything. I don’t see the things around me, including you, the same way as I did before, I don’t _feel_ you the way I did before…” He reached up and ran a slow finger from her ear and along her jawline, a mix of sadness and disbelief drawing down his brow as he examined her. “All those little parts of things I used to be able to feel, that my sensory matrix used to take in are gone. Texture, temperature, sonic pitch, light frequency, all of it’s missing when I touch you, like…”

“Like I’m not real?”

“No, you’re real, I feel your heat, your softness, it’s just… _less_. I know I keep using that word, but that’s all I can come up with.” His eyes shifted up to hers. “I’m not really making any sense, am I?”

“Odo, you are making perfect sense. Keep going. Tell me the rest.”

“Well, it’s just…touching you, feeling you, makes me hate what the Founders have done that much more. I could care less about the rest of my existence, but you…You are a perfect reminder of all they have stolen from me, you embody it, and when I touch you, or you touch me, I remember what’s missing, and I get so outraged, so frustrated, so—” Odo heaved a heavy sigh. “Nerys, I never want to come to you with that kind of hate festering in my heart.”

Kira felt the start of tears burn her eyes, but didn’t let them fall. The last thing Odo needed right now was to see her cry, even for the right reasons. How in all the blessed levels of the Celestial Temple had she been so graced as to find someone like him? The most amazing part of knowing him, of having him in her life, was that only she got see how rare Odo was. Even before they were lovers and he was still her steady, stalwart friend, only she got to see this secret side of him, to know how funny and kind and vulnerable he could be. Their romantic relationship was new, though, like he said. Add to it what the Founders had done, and he had every right to feel lost and confused, even about her.

“Let’s turn the tables for a moment,” Kira said. “Let’s talk about what I feel when I touch you. Do you know what I feel in my arms right now?”

“An angst-ridden ex-Changeling who’s more trouble than he’s worth?”

“No!” Kira replied, chuckling. "You're not trouble, Odo, never to me...I feel _you_ , just the same as you’ve always been. Your skin, the muscles in your back, your breath on my neck, it all feels just as it did before. When you look at me with those ridiculously amazing eyes of yours, I get just as hot as I always did—"

“What do you mean, always did?”

“Like I always did, Constable. Me, and half the other women on the station. Some of the things I’ve heard people say about those scathing, blue-blazed glares of yours would melt you flat, Changeling or no.”

“Well, that’s unnerving. Yet strangely flattering. I sort of wish I hadn’t heard it, yet I also wish you’d told me that sooner. It would've made some things make a lot more sense.”

“Conversations for another time,” Kira replied. “You’re getting me off track. My point is that all of these things I feel and see are just the same. They were yours before, and they’re still yours.”

Odo reached up and traced the ridges on her nose. “So you only want me for my body?”

“Yes, I do,” Kira purred, “and all the things that come with it. My point is that you have always been Odo, and you were a damned good Odo, and you still are. The Founders built your humanoid form off the one you’d designed for yourself, left you all of Odo’s memories and experiences, but you’re the one who made those memories and experiences, not them. Sure, things are different, they’re going to be, but you…are still you. I love all of you, especially the things they could never change, the things no one can see or touch. I love _you_ , Odo.”

He brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. “I love you, too, Nerys. Always. Nothing will ever change that.”

Kira smiled her victory. “And now you see my point.” She pressed her lips to his, and slid her foot slyly up his leg, hooking her heel behind his knee. “Now, can we be done with all of this, and just make love? Please? If you aren’t comfortable, we can always stop, but we’ll never get past any of this if we don’t try.”

“What is it Dax is always saying? Fortune favors the…something. I forget.”

“Good,” Kira said, squeezing his backside. “I don’t wanna talk about Dax right now.”

Much to Kira's delight, Odo stopped talking then, and kissed her instead. He caught the the hem of her gown, bunching up the fabric, getting it out of his way. His fingers slid carefully into the already-slick flesh between her thighs, teasing her gently.

“Well," he quipped, "good to know you’re prepared for the job. Saves time, and oh, Prophets, have I wasted enough of our time.”

“Agreed," Kira returned. "The night’s not getting any younger, and I’ve been ready since you broke in here. Now stop talking, and get back to business.”

“Yes, Major," Odo replied. "Right away."

Kira’s nightgown was pulled up her body and over her head, both of them working together to get rid of it. It was tossed unceremoniously by Odo to land somewhere in the void beyond her bed. Odo took a small pause to tease her flesh again, to taste her breasts. Odo’s erection pressed to Kira’s stomach, and she reached down between them, guiding him to her. There was a slight awkwardness as they moved their bodies, searching for the right angle from their side positions, but it didn't last long once they found each other. Odo hissed air through his teeth as he entered her, easing his way in with short, sweet pulses of his hips. He glided more smoothly as Kira opened to him, pressing in as deep as he could go.

Kira moaned as he filled her, and clung to him, Odo’s teeth nipping her neck as her head arched back against the pillow. Prophets, he felt good. More than that, he felt _right_. Odo had come to her as a Bajoran before, not a Human, but Kira wasn’t missing anything.

She groaned and writhed against him as he moved gently within her, squeezing her own breast as he rocked with her, bringing her leg higher over his hip as her pleasure began to build. He picked up the pace and she bit his shoulder, moving her hips in counterpoint to his, urging him on.

Suddenly, Odo stopped. His whole body tensed, and Kira stopped with him.

“Odo? Are you alright?”

“Alright is not anywhere near the correct word,” he said. “Nerys, I…I don’t think…”

He growled, frustrated, and pulled away from her. Kira didn’t have time to ask why. Odo flipped her quickly on her back, shoving her thighs apart, pushing his way back inside of her, no doubts this time. The change in position sent him even deeper, and Kira cried out, digging her fingers into his arms, clinging to him desperately as he began to thrust heavily within her. The burn of Kira’s pleasure flared through her whole body, flushing her skin, her hairline breaking out in an instant sweat, but Kira knew she wouldn’t make her peak before Odo reached his. She didn't care, though. She hiked her knees up high by his ribs, spurring him on, encouraging him to take her as hard and as fast as he wanted.

Odo stiffened above her, sounding a noise somewhere between pain and joy as release found him. He collapsed on top her, his full weight pinning her down as his whole body shuddered. A hot rush of seed struck Kira’s womb and she smiled into his neck, wrapping her legs behind him, holding him tight. They’d only made love a few times while Odo was still a Changeling, in the humanoid style, and he was plenty good at it, but the traditional finish was something she had missed.

They stayed still for a time, catching their breath. Kira didn’t want to move, didn’t want to give him up, but he was getting too heavy. As if he'd read her thoughts, Odo heaved a reluctant sigh and shifted his weight onto his arms.

Kira reached up and stroked his cheek. “Are you alright?”

Odo’s mouth lifted in a one-sided grin. “We really need to find a better word.”

“Then it was…Are you…?”

“Nerys, it was beautiful," Odo said. He leaned down and planted several light kisses on her face. “ _You’re_ beautiful…”

Odo paused, hovering above her, and a shadow darkened his features as he looked down at her. He rolled off of Kira and onto his back. Kira curled herself into Odo's side, letting him gather his thoughts. Whatever it was that was on his mind, he would share it when he was ready, so she didn't press. Odo stared at the ceiling and rubbed Kira's back in slow, absent strokes as he pondered. Kira's eyes drifted closed in drowsy contentment. 

“They offered me death, you know.”

Kira eyes snapped open. “What?”

“The Founders. They offered to execute me, in lieu of other punishment.”

“And?”

“And I almost accepted, and at first, when the reality hit me of what I’d chosen instead, part of me wished I had accepted.”

Tears rolled down Kira’s temples. “Way to kill the mood, lover.”

“Oh, Nerys, you’re right, I’m sorry,” he said. He wiped her tears. “Please, don’t cry. This is why I don’t tell you things. I only say this because I want you to know that I am happy with my choice. I want you to know that even if my gifts are gone, and even if I have to consider an end-of-days like any other humanoid, I am so heartily and forever grateful you’re here to walk with me along the way.”

Kira sniffled, her smile returning. “Mood restored,” she said.

“Stay here," he replied and kissed her cheek. 

Kira chuckled. "Where else would I go, Odo? It's my bed."

Odo slid down her body, kissing his way over her breasts, over her stomach and down to her navel. Kira sat up, reaching for him. “Odo, you don’t have to—"

“Shhhh,” he said, gently pressing her back down on the bed. “This is business. I left my work unfinished, and we certainly can’t have that.” He kissed the underside of her breast, pulling a sliver of plump flesh into his mouth, leaving a little love mark behind. “I’ll be very busy, no time to talk.”

Kira relaxed back on the bed, smiling and biting her lip as Odo moved lower. Rough hands slid under her thighs, lifting her hips. Without further pretense, Odo took her in his mouth.

Kira sucked in a sharp gasp, clutching the sides of her pillow for dear life as her back arched up to meet him. Her legs swung over his shoulders, heels digging into his back as she gave herself fully to the sensation of his mouth tasting her, teasing, suckling, driving her to writhing, screaming frenzy. As her climax finally came, bursting her apart and reducing her to rubble, Kira sang Odo's name loud enough, she figured, for them to hear her in Ops.

Odo made his way back up the bed to a destroyed Kira, stopping to steal a kiss before gathering her up. He spooned his body behind hers, and nuzzled the place between her shoulder and her neck. 

“Have I mentioned that having a sense of taste and smell is something that is actually an improvement over being a Changeling?”

“Maybe once or twice,” Kira smiled, “especially when we had that chocolate cake.”

“Mmm, that was good. Maybe we should—"

“Odo, no cake. I have to get some rest. You do, too. We’re on duty tomorrow.” She checked the chronometer by her bed and winced. “Or apparently today. Now stop talking, and go to sleep.”

“Yes, Major. Whatever you say.”

Kira giggled and closed her eyes, snug and sated in the circle of Odo’s arms. Just as she was starting to drift off, she felt a stirring behind her, a firm insistence that pressed against her pliant flesh.

“Oh, Prophets,” Kira said. She rolled her hips back into his and drew her knees up a bit higher. "I'm not going to get any sleep at all tonight, am I?”

“All part of my nefarious plan, Major,” Odo returned. His hand slipped between her thighs.

“Well, Constable,”--she gasped--“if we’re not going to sleep, then we’d better get back to business...”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on characters belonging to Paramount. The characters are theirs, the story is mine.


End file.
